The quality of Polish media coverage

Translated from tokfm.pl

- I have learned nothing from the media coverage of the November 11. My picture of those events is very marred - said prof. Wiesław Godzic, a media expert from the SWPS, in an interview with TOKFM.pl. He emphasizes that the knowledge he received, largely depended on a television station, which he actually watched.

- Firstly, during November 11, none of the stations decided to show video-grams and vectors with images of streets being closed. TVN did this but only a day later. A map of this events was extremely needed by people, especially those in Warsaw, who wanted to form an opinion - stresses the professor. - It was extremely important to know where was the authorized marching zone, where was "no man's zone", or which direction the police moved - he adds.

I would not care less about the views of a journalist

The reports, according to the professor, have improved with time. - I realized how the battlefield looked like, but I still did not know who beat whom, who was beaten and whose were the tools found in the the publishing house in Nowy Świat. I waited until a journalist - and I do not care less which one: a left-wing or a right-wing one - tells me what had happened, what were the events - without dressing it in the typical personal: "unfortunately" or "as usual". I am not interested in this type of journalism. I want to draw conclusions by myself - says the media expert.

- I notice with sadness that the lack of information is becoming the norm. The information is being replaced - what can I say - by interpretation - emphasizes prof. Godzic. - I would like to get a report, in an image form say, divided into zones, lines of demonstrations, and the projected route of the march. Then I could assess whether the 300 meters between the protesters and contra-manifestation is a lot or a little - because the 300 meters in the close urban area is not the same as 300 meters on the open field.

- I want to have the pure facts and a journalist who would finger it to me where the ring of the police was broken and whether it was done without permission.

Journalists talk nonsense, they do not stay on top of the situation

According to prof. Godzic pure facts journalism is not valued much today. - For example I wanted to find out what decisions were made and on what basis - this could be at least shown at the bottom of the screen. And this demonstrates another problem of our media - we are not able to summarize. I do not see this type of skills among our journalists - they sidestep the main event and talk nonsense; you can easily see that they do not stay on top of the situation - says the media expert.

- I saw reports from the right-wing side, who said that everything was in order and march was moving along, and at the same time different reports showing swarms of people, firecrackers and a crowd standing rather than walking. I did not know where they came from and which side the groups of hooligans were supporting, I did not know which way they were marching, where did they come from and which direction they were running away. I do not have this image in front of my eyes. Nobody bothered to position himself between the helicopter - which did not transmit anything important but a community of firecrackers - and the street level. What I have seen, was shown either from the global perspective of a helicopter, or reporter being pushed around.

- Media once again has become surprised. But actually they should have been able to predict the events. I am afraid that they once again will not benefit from the last Friday's experience - sums up professor Grodzic.

====
boletus: I actually saw a nice, clean and stable footage of some 11.11.11 event taken at low height from an autogyro, or something of this sort.

he is right.--and I mean correct.

Merged: Poland media business, journalistic decline

The endless commotion and rumpus beinga anned by the Polish media round the death of baby Madzia are an example of how journalism has deterioriated into a crude and vulgar free for all with no holds barred. The death of an innocent child is a tragedy and its cirmumstances should be fully investigated. But to turn the whole thing into yet another media circus of unending news conferneces, late-breaking news flashes, provocative commentary and tabloid/paparazzi style sensationalism just the keep the topic alive... The case of the British couple whose child went missing in Portugal a while back was also sensationalised beyond belief. But one might have hoped that Poles would somehow be a bit wiser, more restrained, decent and able to rise above their copy-cat reality.

never noticed. there is nothing on onet's front page that i can see.

Just a small sample...

tvn24.pl/2502076,12690,0,1,1,matka-magdy-zostaje-w-areszcie,wideo.html

se.pl/wydarzenia/kraj/pogrzeb-madzi-z-sosnowca-katarzyna-w-chce-pozegnac-madzie-chociaz-groza-jej-smiercia_227389.html

polskieradio.pl/5/3/Artykul/537563,Matka-Magdy-chce-byc-na-pogrzebie-corki

wprost.pl/ar/305632/Detektyw-doniosl-na-Rutkowskiego-On-szkodzi-nam-wszystkim

Polish TV news bulletins have kept up a steady stream of Madzia-related items

Why?

Merged: Why can't the Polish media just give us straight news?

Looking at a 'wprost' magazine front cover I noticed a number of stories. Sikorski was on the front with his wife Anne Applebaum, and the title was 'The first lady of diplomacy, can Anne Applebaum promote her husband to president? Also on the front cover was 'scandal in a Catholic school' and 'There is no mafia in Poland.' If this was a different paper, like Gazeta Polska then it would probably read 'Anne Applebaum, trying to force her husband in to the Polish White House.' The other titles would be 'Another attack on the Church,' and 'Leading officials trying to hide the existence of the mafia in Poland.'

What am I getting at?

Wprost is an anti PiS and anti Church oriented paper

Gazeta Polska is anti PO and pro Church.

Thanks to this we continue to get news that is skewed. We never get political news these days, it is always diluted in whatever way those giving it seem to lean. The only news we tend to get given straight is when we get a tragedy, like the recent shooting in the US.

I know I am stating the obvious here but seeing papers with such bias makes it almost unreadable, even if the paper says something you tend to agree with, you can still, if you're honest, tell that is is biased.

There always has been and always will be media bias, in every country.

Every journalist reports a story based on how he sees it, and how we perceive things is based on the various preconceptions we have about the world.

Sometimes, the bias is cynical and imposed by the editorial office. Sometimes, journalists aren't entirely honest, and try to force their opinions on others. Sometimes, the bias is simply a result of how the journalist sees things from his perspective.

Instead of hoping the media will somehow become unbiased (I think that's impossible), I think it would be better for us to become conscious of the fact that the media is biased and that it's impossible to get the full story without looking at several sources of information.

We all here in the U.S.A. understand that the news is controled by the Democrats party, and only tell us what they want, and most of the time not the truth.

Valpomike

hey Val,

I dont think that's the case in the US (I'm neither Demo nor Rep) that the Demo party controls mass media. In the US it's all about the "hype" who killed whom, police brutality, etc. In other words, it hasta sell! If it doesn't, you're out! Look what happened to Newsweek...LA Times might be next. The US press ain't as in Europe, expecially in the UK, where you have a lot of junk, but also some legit papers (FT, The London Times, The Economist) and TV/radio (BBC) and the readership is pretty decent. The only good US paper to read has been The Int'l Herald Tribune though printed outside the US. It's all show biz now, bro!

Why did you mention only two titles?

I was comparing 2 publications that I consider to be opposites of each other. You can give examples or more if you want to.

You might try Polityka which is critical both of opposition right wingers and ruling libertarians.

Polityka (Polish pronunciation: [pɔˈlitɨka], Politics) is a centre-left weekly newsmagazine in Poland. With a circulation of 170,000 (as of June 2006) it is the country's biggest selling weekly, ahead of Newsweek's Polish edition and Wprost. Today, the magazine has a slightly intellectual, social liberal profile, setting it apart from the more conservative Wprost and the glossier approach of Newsweek Poland.

So is Gazeta Wyborcza, Polityka, Newsweek(Lisweek), and so are all the TV stations: TVP(public), TVN, Polsat, Superstacja.

All are propaganda for Lemmings.

Rzeczpospolita was till recently the only conservative daily and its Uważam Rze weekly had become the best selling weekly in the country. This has changed recently and now PO(govn't) and the Leftists have got the media wrapped up.

Lack of plurality in the media is one of the signs of a failed democracy.

The Lemmings are starting to wake up slowly as recent government (PO) popularity is falling sharply.

economist.com/news/europe/21565266-growing-unpopularity-polish-prime-minister-tusk-tusk

Without a reason?


They shot in their own feet with the article about explosives on the Smoleńsk plane wreck. It was very unprofessional, you must admit. Did Tusk order them to publish it???


Come on, the fall of popularity is nothing unusual considering the times we are living in.


Impossible.

you are right - it's impossible, because there is only pseudo "Uważam Rze" left

pawian - Rz didn't say there were explosives on the presidential plane.

Really? Shall we start again?

WielkiPolak- unfortunately you are correct in every sense in your op. I wish I had answers but objectively I have to wonder if the majority are really stupid enough to buy into these dichotomies or if there isn't in fact a "divide and conquer" strategy being employed on the masses. Either way, we're fcuked.

I agree with you on this. I know it is not just in the US where the idea is 'it has to sell' or grab attention but in the US there does seem to be that extra care given to amplifying stuff, not just news but 'Reality TV'. sports events etc that just make them seem so obviously unreal or scripted. I sometimes get the feeling that in the US, almost everything on TV is scripted to make i more interesting and get a lot more viewers. Shockingly, even news. Turn on an American 24// news channel and you'll get bright colors, over the top presenters and facts [most of the time] told in such a way that make it seem interesting. Perhaps they think Americans generally have a short attention span. I remember I was once watching a political debate and the presenter would show lots of clips, ask questions and then give each participant about 20 seconds to speak before she butted in and started to spruce stuff up a bit. These people had not time to say anything, it almost made you wonder if there was any point in them being there.


Oh I know most media is anti PiS and anti Church in Poland and there are only probably 1 or 2 papers and 1 TV station [that a lot of people do not have access to] that aren't. TVP info occasionally goes against the grain [the TVP news channel] but TVP1 and TVP2, the mainstream public ones that probably get more viewers, are similar to TVN and Polsat.


Oh I suppose you are going to give the old 'PiS used media for their own gain so now the media has a right to constantly hound them for the past 5 years.' It's rare to see in countries that with the party in power doing so badly and screwing up so much, the mainstream media still concentrates such a large part of it's output on criticizing the opposition, who are not in power and therefore cannot do anything about it.

@Foreigner4

Sometimes I wonder if it is possibly not see what PO is doing with the media, how it shuts out any media that is against them, and has journalists who might be against them kicked out. Sometimes it's more subtle, sometime more obvious, but in general, people should be noticing it. There are a lot of protests against the attack on pluralism in the media but not enough and even when there are protests against this and against the mainstream media lying, the mainstream media reports them as just some minor gatherings that have little to no meaning. Oh the irony.

You hit the nail on its head: they do! It has to be short, fast n to the point, otherwise, the viewers will flip thru it n move on to other channels. Look at BBC n Fox TV, the diff in colors n personality is huge: a serious, reserved look of BBC vs a Colgate smile of a Fox News presenter. Dunno perhaps teh US stations have a better dental plan, hair dressers :)

American channels also have to grab your attention so that you sit through the ridiculously frequent ad breaks, which seem to occur every 3 to 7 minutes. And they tell you something really interesting is coming up "right after the break," when it fact it's not right after the break, but right after a break 20 minutes down the line. Polish TV is equally unwatchable, though. After watching the news, I never make it to the weather forecast because you have to sit through about half an hour of mind-numbing ads to get to it, with a short and uninteresting sports segment somewhere in the middle, which is itself pre- and postfixed with a half a dozen sponsor messages.


I have tried to compare TVP's Wiadomości, TVN's Fakty and Polsat's Wydarzenia, and Fakty stands out to me as being the worst. This is entirely subjective, of course, but I've noticed it is sometimes completely silent on a significant event that's covered on the other news programmes, and I find it difficult to swallow that the reporters on a programme that purports to give you the Facts so often adopt a mocking and sarcastic tone in their reports on the opposition parties. Oh, I bet they think they're so clever.

Why can't any media outlet give us straight answers?

Have you been living under a rock? Do you know what bias means?

you have definitely misunderstood Varsovian - explosives on the plane and TNT on the wreckage can be two different things

if Rzeczpospolita was an independent daily and not government's cronie's possession it would have been just an article and no shot in the foot

I know exactly what you mean. To be honest though, Polish television has got it wrong. They have less ads but when they do appear, they take all day. Like, a movie might only have a couple of ad breaks but both last about 20 minutes, literally, no exaggeration. In the US the constant breaks are annoying but at least they only last about a minute or so, then you get back to watch you are watching. That method works better, as viewers know the program might be back on soon, so they stay. In Poland, once you hit an ad break, you could go make yourself some food, have a bath, do some cleaning, then when you get back, the ads are still on. Sometimes if I flick over to what seems like an interesting film and an add break hits after 5 minutes I just give up and turn over or turn off.

Yes I know what bias means? What are you getting at? It seems to me you are lacking a point to your post.

Not impossible at all, in fact, a fact.


What was very unprofessional? A month later, the state prosecutors confirmed it. Of course they danced and wriggled - it was TNT but it could have been deodorant(sic). I'm afraid you're not up on the subject. Let me tell why. You read state praising papers. Now you can add Rzepa to the list and you will be as informed as Belorussians are.


If you knew who created ITI(TVN), when, and why, you would not be surprised at all. Same with Polsat. Wikipedia will not help you much here though.

Just out of interest, it all comes down who pulls the strings in the III RP. I recommend Anatoliy Golitsyn's "New Lies for Old" - Part III. You can easilyt find it in pdf form. It's a good start to understanding what is around you and in general about the "fall" of communism.

For understanding U.S. media it is helpful to read some old Chomsky's texts on the subject and also know something in general about neo-Marxism.

Merged:

The Poland's TVN is in fact an anti-Polish TV station

TVN has been spreading anti-Polish sentiment from the beginning of its inception in Polish media. However, Its most aggressive attacks on everything Polish have occurred most recently. It is time to bring it down Poland! The best way to do it is not to watch it - that is the best and easiest method.

Sir, yes, sir! ;)